


Painful Memories

by MayLovelies



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Romance, Tumblr Prompt, but it's a different take, takes place during the Poe and Kylo torture scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 13:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6522274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayLovelies/pseuds/MayLovelies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Sometimes, memories are the worst form or torture anyone can imagine. And unfortunately for Poe, trapped within the clutches of the First Order, he learns this the hard way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Painful Memories

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed!

Poe was very aware of what the mind probe was.

Some time ago, Leia had told him about it, describing it in such a way that sent shivers down Poe’s spine. Yet, she herself was able to withstand it years ago when it was performed on her, Poe wasn’t so sure about how he’d fair in his current situation.

 

His captor, a masked man dressed in black from head to toe, didn’t seem like the type of person who would go easy on him and or show any type of mercy. Besides, he was dead set on finding to location of the map to Luke Skywalker and the more Poe refused to give its location away, the angrier this man seemed. (They made small talk, but Poe was far too lightheaded to even understand what he himself was saying)

 

So as he extended his hand, and prepared for the mind probe, Poe began to build up any strength he had. He knew this was going to hurt like hell, more than he could ever imagine. If he knew anything, torture of the mind was limitless, and endless. But the most important thing at that moment was not for him to truly resist, but call to mind other memories _not_ BB-8’s location. Memories that were happy, and that would throw a bastard like this off. Hell, Poe knew this man might just kill him, but at least he’d die recalling something happy.

 

And that’s exactly what he did.

 

The first person he wanted to think of, as he felt the probe digging into his memories, was his mother. But he feared that even her memory would lead to a clue, so he went deeper and quicker than the force user could. And the memory he reached, the memory that brought to mind the happiest moment in his life, was with his childhood love.

 

Ben Solo. Though Ben may not have known that he was Poe’s childhood love, Poe certainly felt nothing but tenderness when he met him. Even if Ben had just smiled at him, Poe had to grab on to something for support. But while the memory in itself was happy…it was also sad. Poe, at that moment, now resilient to any kind of pain (though he wasn’t sure the force user was inflicting pain), recalled the very moment when Ben left for training. They were teenagers, and Poe was furious. Ben had become distant in the weeks before not even informing Poe that he would leave. The day Poe wanted to ask him something he’d been waiting to ask him for years. But he’d gone, without a good-bye.

 

Pondering on that thought more, Poe felt more weak that before. It was no doubt that the force user would easily be able to infiltrate the location of the map however…Poe looked on ahead after having opened his eyes, and saw the masked man standing, glaring at him (or so he assumed), without moving a muscle.

 

“What? Did you get bored with my memories?” Poe spat rather angrily. “Or are you just upset that you didn’t get what you wanted?”

 

“I can find the whereabouts of the map, without any difficulty. But, for the moment, that’s no longer my concern.” He spoke quickly, and rather desperately through his mask. Poe was rather confused. “There is something I need you to tell me. Your memories,” He slowly walked towards Poe. “They’ve made me…curious.”  
“I’m not going to tell you a damn thing.” If Poe wasn’t stuck on that god forsaken contraption, he would have punched this man’s mask off.

Yes, the idea was for him to trick this force user with his happy memories, but the last thing he wanted, or needed was him asking about them. Poe already felt violated enough by this man.

 

“Be thankful, that I spared you the torture of the mind probe. Answer my questions and I will spare you again.” He sneered. “As I mentioned before, resistance will only increase the pain. Answer my questions, and we can avoid that. You will tell me what I need to know.”

 

“Fuck off—”

 

“Ben Solo.” The masked man spoke, rendering Poe to fall silent. “He was important to you?”

 

“You read my mind you ass, didn’t you? What the hell do you think?” Poe snarled. 

 

“Thoughts can be tampered with, or built to be fake. Regardless, I can dig deeper and find out the truth, but you’d rather have me not do that. So answer my question, was he truly important to you?”

 

Burning, Poe responded. “Yes…he was…and he still is.”

 

“How so?”

 

_What the fuck??_ Poe wanted to scream, he wanted to kill this man, but seeing as though he was stuck, all he could do was glare at him in silence. If looks could kill, this man would have been massacred.

 

“ _How so?_ ” He repeated once again. Impatiently, the masked man took a step forward and extended a hand towards Poe, but it fell to his side just seconds later. It seemed as if he wanted to go on with the mind probe, but in fear of what he may figure out, he stopped.

 

“You didn’t, truly care for Ben Solo then, I assume. Who would blame you? No one truly cared for him, after all, he was a lost cause. A failure in both the eyes of his parents, and the Jedi---”

 

“That isn’t true!” Poe shot back, furiously. All efforts of trying to stay silent fell lifeless upon the accusation that he _didn’t_ care for Ben. Ben was probably one of the _only_ people he cared about growing up. And the fact that some edgy bastard had the nerve to accuse Poe of such a thing, made him furious. “I cared about him more than I cared about myself. When he left, I was devastated. You have no idea how much he meant to me, you have no idea how he changed me…don’t you dare speak like you know anything about him, about us!” He was a lot more passionate and emotional than he should have been, and for that he was angry. Years of training seemed to seep out of his hands with every word he spoke. Such an emotional outburst would have been reprimanded or looked down upon, even by Poe himself, but he couldn’t just sit there and let this bastard speak as if he knew anything.

 

“But it is.” The force user took a step back. “Most people believed that Ben Solo was a failure, most people who claimed they cared for him…didn’t. You can lie, all you want, and make yourself out to be someone who truly cared, but you aren’t fooling me. You didn’t fool Ben. Understandably, as the best pilot of the Resistance, you have to hold up a front that you actually care about all those who were on the side of the light at a point, but I can tell, that Ben Solo wasn’t nearly as important as you’ve made him out to be. You didn’t care, his mother didn’t…his father didn’t….no one did.” The man chuckled slightly. “I venture to say, no one even remembers him.” The man turned his back to Poe, in response, Poe looked down.

 

Caught in such emotional distress and anger, Poe felt hot tears rolling down his cheeks. Tears of confusion and fury. How could this man even hurt him like this? How could he make him feel pain to such an extent? Perhaps it was the authority in his voice, or the way he spoke so surely and with confidence. Yet he was wrong, but still, with every accusation thrown at Poe, he felt more and more violated. He didn’t know what to say, as he feared with every piece of his past he gave this man, he’d turn it around with his poisonous words, and only bring more pain. But against every will in his body, he spoke.

 

“I remember…I remember _everything_ about him…” He muttered. Voice shaking out of anger, agony and sadness. “I remember…I remember everything…”

 

“What do you remember?” The man, now facing Poe, seemed to lessen his sharp remarks and only stared curiously.

 

“I remember Ben, hated heights. He wasn’t so much afraid but he…he hated them. He told me that one second, you could be looking over a ledge and the next second…you were falling. I remember he hated that I was a pilot, or that I wanted to be one. _That,_ actually scared him…he was of course terrified that I could crash, which was understandable. I feel guilty now, I would do various tricks in the sky, over his house just to scare him. He wouldn’t speak to me for days...I remember how much he loved me to run my fingers through his hair. He didn’t like when people touched him or his hair in general, but he made an exception for me. I remember…” Poe went on and on, for minutes until he couldn’t keep track. So many confessions, so many things he had recalled. It was soothing, in a sense, to finally tell someone these memoires. For years, he’d kept them locked away and they’d only brought him pain. Now reliving some of his happiest moments with Ben, despite the circumstance, was so relieving.

 

After about ten or fifteen minutes, Poe stopped. The masked man, who was listening all along, perked his head up.

 

“Is that all?” He asked, quietly, as if not to disturb Poe’s thought process. “Is that all you remember…?”

 

“No.” Poe opened his still tear filled eyes, and faced the man. Despite the fact that he couldn’t see anyone through the mask, he wanted to make direct eye contact with him. It he was going to die here by this man’s hand after this, he wanted to be looking directly at him. He’d trusted a stranger with his most precious memories, the stranger who would probably take his life.

 

“I remember…how angry I felt the day he left. How angry I was…he never told me he would leave…he just…left…” Poe shook his head, as if acknowledging a sudden realization. Or even more so, admitting his deepest truth to himself. “For years, I blamed him for it. I blamed him for growing distant, and for not seeking me out but…you know, I’ve finally realized something.”

 

The man, remaining silent, nodded as if to beckon him to go on.

 

“He wasn’t he one who abandoned me…he wasn’t the one who grew distant. It was me…I left him, I abandoned him. When I rose in ranks and my talent as a pilot was recognized…I…I…I stopped visiting him…I…I found other people, people that….at the time…I thought were more…i…important…and…I abandoned Ben…I didn’t…didn’t…h…have time for…no.” Poe took a deep breath, mixed with a dry sob. “I didn’t make time for him. I didn’t put him first…like I should have…and because of that, I left him…I left him alone…I abandoned him…I broke his heart…and that’s why he didn’t tell me he was leaving…Because he probably didn’t think I cared…” Poe, who was now on the verge of hysterical tears, sucked everything up for a moment to ask a simple question. If he got past this last part, these last few questions, he could make it through without having a total breakdown.

 

“H...how do you know Ben?” This masked man spoke so surely of Ben, almost as if they’d known each other. Having given out such precious personal information, Poe at least believed that this man should answer his question.

 

“How do I know Ben?” He repeated, and Poe simply nodded. “I killed him.” He quickly responded.

 

“What…?”

 

“I killed him. He was too weak, and had far too much light in him for him to be useful to me, as a Knight of Ren, so I killed him. At the time of his death, he confessed everything. He truly felt alone, and abandoned by those he loved, even you Poe. He also knew that at the same time, he would have no love, whether he stayed or returned. Ben was fully aware that there was no point in him living anymore. He was a traitor to the Resistance and a failure to the First Order…so he asked me to kill him, and I did.”

 

Poe couldn’t contain himself anymore. He knew just how shameful it was to cry in front of an enemy, but hell, he help it. These emotions, this regret…this _pain._ This whole interrogation was worse than any sort of torture he could have ever imagined, and he just wanted it to end.

 

“I started by eradicating his happiness and leaving him with pain. It actually wasn’t hard, given he wasn’t happy to begin with—”

 

“Kill me.” Poe spoke briefly, holding back a sob.

 

“What?” The masked man was caught off guard.

 

“I won’t tell you where the map is, I never will. I’m useless to you…but if I go back to the Resistance, I won’t be able to live with this guilt…I won’t function…I’ll be useless…” Biting back the feeling of another sob he continued. “I can’t…I can’t do this…I can’t live…you killed Ben…you killed...me as well…” Tears continued to roll down his cheeks. “Kill me before you leave here.”

 

“You wanted to ask him something.” The masked man spoke quickly, as if he ignored Poe’s request. “I know this, but I couldn’t uncover just what you wanted to ask him. So what was it? What did you want to ask him before he left?”

 

Seeing as though he was going to die anyway, Poe cleared his throat, and spoke. “I wanted to ask him to run away with me. Another thing I remembered was that, he never wanted to be a Jedi. He was forced into it and he hated it…with the war going on, I knew how hectic things were, and I knew that Ben was hurting so much.” Poe began to tremble again. “I wanted to take him away…so he could be happy.”

 

“If you saw him again now, would you still ask him to run? No matter how things have changed? Would you still love him?”

 

“…Of…course…” Poe half sobbed. “I will…never…stop loving him…”

 

A pregnant silence, save for Poe attempting to hold back his tears, filled the room. With his eyes shut, Poe didn’t realize that his captor slowly began to remove his mask.

 

“Is that all?” He muttered, his voice now clearer and less robotic.

 

“If I saw him again,” Poe, eyes still closed continued. “if I saw him again, I would apologize…I’d beg for his forgiveness.”

 

With his mind clouded with guilt and distress, he couldn’t hear the footsteps of the masked man coming towards him. When finally, Poe’s eyelids began to flutter open, he was taken aback by the soft lips of his captor’s upon his. Poe’s eyes shot open, shocked and angered by the sudden intruding action. Having the urge to fight back and scream, Poe nearly froze when he caught fool view of his captors face.  Confused, and more hurt than anything Poe broke the kiss for a split second, feeling the weight of the room, the moment, the weight of everything coming down upon him.

 

“Ben…” He breathed, as his captor backed up in full view. Pale face, wavy dark hair, sad eyes…this was Ben, this was _his_ Ben. “Ben…”

 

“You don’t need my forgiveness…” He spoke darkly. “because I was never angry. I never needed an apology from you, Poe. It’s okay. I wasn’t angry.” He manage a smile.

 

Poe’s tear filled eyes remained locked in Ben’s embrace, as he still wore an expression of agony. Ben took another step forward, inclined once again desperately connected his lips with Poe’s. Poe’s response was delayed, but nevertheless, despite his current position, he returned the kiss with the utmost passion. Within seconds, Poe felt the binds of the mechanism holding him loosen, until finally he was free. Pulling Ben closer, he wrapped his arms around his neck. In response, not daring to break the kiss, Ben positioned his arms around Poe’s waist and pulled him as close as possible.

 

“I’m s...sorry…” Poe whispered, over and over again through small breaks of their kiss, but Ben only responded by softly shaking his head and slowly kissing the tears and streaks from Poe’s cheeks. “It’s okay…” He whispered. “You don’t need to be sorry…you’ve helped me more than you can know.”

“How? I left you…I…”

“Thank you Poe…thank you for remembering.” And at that moment, despite his best effort to stay away. Everything around the room turned black and Poe lost his footing along with the will to stay awake. His world grew grew.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! Please comment and tell me what you think!!


End file.
